Everyone is so busy getting stuck into their studies, with
deadlines looming and Christmas fast approaching – too fast for me! I am extra
busy with my new clinical placement. I see
four clients on Thursday morning in the placement I started at the beginning of
my second year. On Friday I see three in my new placement in an inner London
Borough. I also have extra supervision
to attend and all those extra notes to write up.
The two placements
are very different. My first is set in a
leafy outer London suburb above a GP surgery.
It is a charity funded solely from donations and fund raising
activities. Clients can either refer themselves
or be referred by their GPs. It is in a
quiet suburban road with only the sounds of birds and the occasional train to
disturb the silence. It is a very new
building with new furniture, walls painted in tasteful shades of soothing lilac
with calming prints on the walls. When there is sunshine, it streams through
the windows. I greet clients in the waiting room and bring them through to our
counselling room. My other placement is part
of a GP surgery with 12,000 patients on its books located in a huge old stately
Victorian former bank building set right on one of the busiest intersections in
South London. All clients are referred
by their GP’s, or another professional. The paintwork and furnishings have seen
better days and none of the chairs match.
The waiting area walls are liberally sprinkled with notices requesting
people to stay away if they have the flu and urge them to come for a flu jab if
they haven’t. I work in the basement where
the sound of police sirens, ambulances, and the general hurley burley of the
outside world is somewhat muffled by the thick walls that still house the huge
former bank vaults and block out any vestige of sunlight. There is a sense of
real calm there with every effort being made to soften the harsh environment
with subdued lighting and soft furnishings. Reception notifies me of my
clients’ arrival by computer system, and I then pop my head outside the door to call my client
patiently waiting with the patients booked for blood tests, walking frames etc. As soon as I show my clients in, I have to
notify reception by computer system and ask them to complete a monitoring form
– and only then are we able to settle
into the work. Although the settings are so different, the clientele still come
with the same concerns and my role remains the same – to be the best counsellor
I can be. It is wonderful experience working in such contrasting settings. 
There are only eleven in our year group now, it feels much
more intimate. After three hours of
theory we split into two case discussion groups and then those who are doing
the long research project are free to go where the six of us who are studying
the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy pathway stay for a further two hours for theory
and practical work. We are all now qualified to diploma level and are referred
to as counsellors rather than as students or trainees. We are expected to be even more self-
directed with our studies this year and our tutors seem different – more like
mentors guiding us towards that time we will be leaving Greenwich as fully
fledged counsellors – a scary thought!
In between my two clinical placement ‘slots’ I still attend
my weekly stained glass evening class.
Sometimes it feels such a struggle to get it together after a busy,
tiring day but once there I become lost in the joy and wonder of working with
glass. It is incredibly important for me
to balance my academic work with practical projects such as my stained glass
work, gardening and house renovations.
Walking through Autumn woods followed by indulging in a big
bowl of warm homemade soup, watching David Attenborough’s Frozen Planet series
with its stunning photography, browsing in my local fabric shop with my senses
bombarded with colour and texture, a warm bubbly bath filled with gorgeous
smellies, are some of my favourite things for renewing my flagging spirits!
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